


The Angry Itch

by mcgarrygirl78



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 11:30:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcgarrygirl78/pseuds/mcgarrygirl78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave may have thought he was too awesome to get his ass in a sling but Erin let the bubble burst on her overinflated ego a long time ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Angry Itch

Erin walked out of the bathroom in a fluffy, pink towel. Her hair was pinned and her skin damp. Dave was in bed, researching for his current novel. He didn’t even bother looking up from his laptop. This was a test; he passed and failed miserably.

“You're still angry.” She said. There was no anger in her voice but Erin said it in a matter of fact tone. “It’s been nearly a week and you're still pissed off for no reason.”

“No, I'm good.” Dave gave her a curt nod. He still didn’t look up.

“You haven’t even looked at me, David.”

“I've seen you a million times and I'm rather busy.” He looked up but only for a brief moment. “There's a lot of research to be done for this story. I may as well do it with all the extra time on my hands.”

“Fine.” Erin sighed. She walked over to her vanity, started putting her night products into a basket. “I'm going to sleep in my own room tonight.”

“Sure thing.”

“C'mon babies,” Erin called for the dogs who were lying on the bed with Dave. Both Mudgie and Scruff jumped down onto the carpet.

“No!” Dave’s voice was sharp, stopping both his wife and the canines in their tracks. “You're not taking my dog.”

“He's not your dog; he's our dog, David. I always sleep with the dogs. I sleep with them more than I sleep with you.”

“You have a dog now; you can take Scruff. _My_ dog stays in _my_ room. For God’s sake I won't have you taking everything from me.”

“You are so goddamn...” Erin held up her hand in defense. “I don’t want to fight. Mudgie can stay with you, that’s fine. Stay with Daddy, OK?”

The retriever, who seemed unimpressed by the turn of events, jumped back onto the bed with Dave. Erin and Scruff left the bedroom. She fought with every fiber of her being not to slam her bedroom door closed. Standing in the middle of the plush carpet, Erin began to pace. Her body quickly covered in numb tingles. 

She hadn’t experienced anything like it in quite a while. She sat on the end of the bed and looked at Scruff. The mutt was finding a relaxing spot on the queen size bed to return to sleep. Erin took her rosewater cream from the basket. She needed to complete her nighttime rituals; it was a rule she rarely broke. 

Her hand was trembling and still numb at the same time. Erin held tighter to the bottle. At least she thought she held it tighter. Finally giving up in frustration, she threw the rosewater across the room. Luckily it didn’t crash into anything and scare the dog. The round bottle rolled along the carpet before bumping into the entertainment center.

There were pajamas and relaxing clothes in the top dresser drawer. Erin got up, walked over, and sifted through the folded piles. She settled on a pair of blue checked pajama pants and a Mrs. Carter World Tour tee shirt she bought when she and Ted saw Beyoncé in New York. Curling up in bed, Erin just lay there. Scruff cuddled closer as the tears slid down her cheeks. 

She bit down on her lip so she wouldn’t sob. It was pointless to hate crying. Tears were not a sign of weakness; they were a sign of strength. Good tears could get you to the other side of a very bad way. From the time she was a little girl, Erin associated them with failure. 

Everything from skinning her knee to losing a debate or fencing match, to not getting the Rhodes scholarship, she rarely cried tears of joy. Erin and Dave didn’t often fight. They'd gotten most of it out their first few rounds as a couple. When disagreements or differences bubbled to the surface it almost always had to do with the BAU.

In the five years since David Rossi returned to the Bureau and her life, the infrequent barn burners were record setting. Rossi didn’t like taking orders and it was Strauss’ job to give them. Over the years Erin got better with her by the book ways. She knew the field could be crazy…rules weren’t always the first thing on an Agent’s mind. 

That didn’t mean that as Section Chief Erin wasn’t going to come down with the wrath of God if need be. The strange part was that this time it wasn’t like that. Rossi injured his ankle in Houston. He hobbled around for nearly a week, ignoring Erin’s concerns, until it swelled to the size of a softball. 

Alex took him to the hospital when he could no longer lie about the pain. Doctor’s orders was to stay off his feet for ten days. For good measure, and through tough love, Dave stayed as relaxed as he could for two weeks. He was quite surprised when his request to return to field work, along with his medical pass, was approved by his Unit Chief but denied by the Section Chief.

“ _What's this?” Dave tossed the paperwork on Erin’s desk. She looked at him with glasses resting on the bridge of her nose._

_“You're tossing things at me now?” she countered his question with one of her own._

_“You denied my request to return to field work.”_

_“So you know what it is but you're asking me anyway?”_

_“Please don’t piss me off any more than I already am.” Dave spoke through clenched teeth._

_“I could really care less about your attitude, Agent Rossi. You're not physically ready to return to the field.”_

_“So you're a doctor now? I must’ve slept through the part where you got your medical degree.”_

_“Why are you being so angry?” Erin asked._

_“I’d like to be out there doing my job.”_

_“It’s not a good idea for any agent to return to field work until they are properly healed, physically and in all other aspects. With the condition that your ankle was in when you finally sought medical attention combined with your age; two weeks is not enough time.”_

_“You don’t get to make that decision.” He said._

_“That’s where you're wrong. It’s my job to make that decision. It’s my job to make sure my field agents are 100% healthy. Not only do they have to watch their own backs, but those of their teammates.”_

_“This is ridiculous. Will you just sign the damn thing, Erin?”_

_“I will not.” She shook her head. “I cleared you to return for two weeks of desk duty to give your ankle more rest. 30 days should be enough to return to field work since you seemed to have already gotten a doctor to sign off on you.”_

_“I can go over your head.” Dave said._

_“You could try that. Or you could follow a direct order for once without beating your chest or measuring your cock. I don’t do these things to piss you off, Agent Rossi. Brace yourself for this next statement but everything is not about you. My #1 priority is the integrity and safety of every agent under my watch and I won't let your pride get anyone hurt or killed.”_

_“You're being petty.”_

_“I've been accused of worse…by you as a matter of fact.” Erin said._

_Dave wanted to explode. He wanted to force her to sign the damn thing, which was unethical, irrational, and impossible. He wasn’t sure why he was so angry but he was. He felt fine and there was no reason to keep him grounded for another two weeks. And she had to throw in that crack about his age?_

_What the hell was that? It was true that Dave was no spring chicken. He didn’t however have one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Who the hell was she to make an arbitrary decision like that? He was an excellent agent, sore ankle be damned._

_“This isn’t the end of this discussion.” He said._

_“I look forward to our next encounter. They always leave me with such a pleasant feeling.”_

_Dave stormed out, still limping. Men could be so unreasonable…he was so unreasonable. What was wrong with healing and taking care of yourself? The field work and the maniacs weren’t going anywhere. The insanity would continue whether David Rossi was out there trying to put a stop to it or not. Erin knew that work fulfilled him, it fulfilled her as well, but wasn’t his physical health meaningful too._

_Hotch, Emily, Reid, Penelope, and JJ all came back to work too soon. It affected them in a variety of ways and those effects reverberated through the Bureau. Hell, Jason Gideon took six months off after his trauma and became the biggest cautionary tale of them all. The Senate was still watching the BAU. It was on a smaller scale since the Curtis debacle but the eyes and ears were there. Dave Rossi might have thought he was too awesome to get his ass in a sling but Erin let the bubble burst on her overinflated ego a long time ago_.

“Erin?” he gently lay his hand on her shoulder. “Baby, are you asleep?”

“I'm not. Please don’t touch me.”

“I need to apologize.”

“I don’t want to hear it, David.”

“Will you look at me? Please.”

“I prefer not to.”

“Baby…”

“Get out.” She growled it so low under the breath that Erin wasn’t even sure she said it.

“Erin, I…”

“Get the hell out!” she exclaimed.

The way she shouted scared both Dave and Scruff. Erin comforted her dog as her husband jumped from the bed. He landed on his ankle wrong, muttering expletives the entire way. She didn’t bother to check and see if he was alright. Dave knew that meant she was pissed.

“I acted like an ass.” He said. “You're pissed and I don’t even blame you, Erin. I won't press the issue but I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I don’t even know why I reacted the way I did but I did. I want you to know I'm truly sorry.”

“Just admit that you were wrong.” Erin turned over on her back. “You were wrong as hell, Rossi. Some other shit got into your brain and you took your anger out on me and that’s unacceptable. It’s so unacceptable that it makes me sick to my stomach.”

“I was wrong. I had no right to react the way I did about any of it. I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that tonight.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Can I…?”

“I really want you to leave.” Erin replied. “You apologized, I accepted it, and now I want to go to sleep. There will be no kissing and making up.”

“But you haven’t accepted it; I can hear it in your voice. I can see it in your body language. You hate me right now, and I get that…”

“No, you really don’t get that at all. Listen to yourself, David.” She couldn’t hold in the noise of disgust that came from her throat. “Me, I; you're only thinking about your own feelings. You want me to forgive you so that you can feel better about being a monumental ass. You’re probably hoping for a little makeup sex in which you'll be thoroughly satisfied. 

“The more sympathetic you appear at this moment, the better your chances right? I love you. At your best and at your worst, I love you. Most of the time I actually believe that you love me right back. Tonight I do not like you. I haven’t liked you for almost a week. 

“I do not want to see your face. I want to sleep and simmer in my loathing. Tomorrow might be different. Then again, it might not be. But I can promise you that whatever happens it will be on my terms and in my time. Goodnight.”

Dave didn’t say goodnight back. What she’d said made him a little speechless. He turned and walked out of the room. He hated the idea of going to bed with her mad at him but he had crossed the line. Apparently she’d been upset for days and he was so wrapped up in his own shit that he hadn’t even noticed. 

Erin would forgive him, he hoped, but hairline cracks were spreading across their foundation of trust and mutual respect. That’s the way it started in all of his relationships. Things would run smoothly for a while, they'd hit a bump in the road, and the whole thing would collapse. Not being in control wasn’t easy…Dave just wanted to make things right. The best way to do that, even if it was difficult, was to shut up for once.

Though she was bone tired, Erin climbed out of the bed. She turned the satellite radio to the 70s AM station and grabbed her rosewater cream from the carpet. After she took off her pajamas, Erin moisturized her skin. She sat naked on the end of the bed for a while, as she always did, and then redressed. In the nightstand drawer, she got a Marlboro Mild. 

Erin held it in her hands for a few minutes, then between her lips, before putting it back. It wasn’t one of those kinds of nights. There was a bottle of Ambien in the drawer as well. It was definitely one of those kinds of nights. She took a small pill, washing it down with the bottle of water on the nightstand. 

Turning off the lamp, Erin slipped back under the covers and snuggled with Scruff. Holding onto her anger was useless, she knew that. She just had to figure out a way to let it go without letting Dave off the hook. He needed to own his mistakes just as she did her best to own hers. Erin didn’t want gifts or groveling or empty promises; she wanted respect. 

That went double for her position as his superior in the workplace. So many agreements they made as Dave and Erin concerning Rossi and Strauss would fall by the wayside whenever Rossi or David felt so inclined. Rarely did he keep his end of the bargain. It was impossible to be married to David and not his alter ego. But Erin wasn’t sure how much longer should could stand the veteran profiler’s temperament.

***


End file.
